TWO clubs I used to manage have been battling it out to avoid finishing bottom of the SPFL Premiership.

It has been a close-fought tussle over the last few months, but I think Motherwell finally landed the knock-out blow as they beat St Mirren 5-0 earlier this week.

The problem for the Buddies, who are now 10 points adrift, is they just have not been scoring goals. They have played well in patches, but they have struggled to put the ball in the net. The fact they have only bagged 22 goals in 32 games is clear evidence of that.

In the last few weeks they have started to get into a losing habit and that's resulted in them sinking to the bottom of the table with six defeats from their last seven games summing up their slump.

I would say it would take a major miracle to stop them from going down now.

In contrast, Motherwell have started to kick on and put points on the board, and a major factor in that has been their ability to get goals.

Between the St Mirren game and the Hamilton Accies match a couple of weeks ago they have scored nine, something which former Celtic forward Scott McDonald has no doubt had an influence on.

Both Well and County have picked up their form and it is the closest run fight down there for years. It is so difficult to call who will finish in the play-off spot above St Mirren.

Motherwell currently occupy it, but that's not to say others can't be dragged down. Partick Thistle and even Kilmarnock could get sucked into things.

Hamilton are probably just out of reach, but when you go into the bottom six and you go on a bad run things can get difficult.

At this time of year momentum plays a big part in things, and with County and Motherwell both on great runs, you'd not bet against someone else finishing in 11th spot.

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